Crimson
by irmaida
Summary: "Unlike his Catnip, his specialty isn't the immediate, quick-release arrow. It's the snare, which requires more strategy and patience. But his snares never fail. And one way or another, he'll trap his Catnip into his heart." Winner of Starvation's September monthly challenge: Arrows.


_Crimson_

\

He looks at his haggard reflection in the bathroom mirror, his knuckles white as they clutch onto the sink faucet. Then he looks down at the little baby girl in the sink, who is crying and crying and crying.

How—oh how, oh how, oh _how_—did he get here?

\

It had all begun with the arrow.

\

The girl pulls back the bow and, one eye closed, releases the arrow. There is a _twang_, and the arrow sails through the air and cuts clean through the squirrel's eye, as always.

"I don't understand how you do it, Catnip," he says, looking at the skinny girl beside him. "Arrow straight through the eye. Every time."

"I always get what I aim for, Gale," the girl says smugly, adding the squirrel into her pack. "Come on, that's enough for today. The Hob?"

He nods, although his Catnip isn't looking. She doesn't need to. She already knows that he will agree. They are like two parts of a whole—functioning perfectly together and not quite the same without each other. Sometimes they can read each other's minds.

And he smiles as he looks at Catnip, and remembers the _other _arrow. The arrow she had shot through his heart.

The 74th Hunger Games are coming up, and after them, if she survives her Reaping, he is planning on telling her. About the arrow. He will _make _her understand. That having childrenis worth it, sometimes, with the right person. Unlike his Catnip, his specialty isn't the immediate, quick-release arrow. It's the snare, which requires more strategy and patience. But his snares never fail. And one way or another, he'll trap his Catnip into his heart.

And maybe, then, the arrow will stop bothering him.

He's going to do this. He's already mapped out most of the snare, most of his strategy. One day, he and Catnip are going to have a beautiful baby girl, and they'll name her Prim, because Prim would love having a niece named after her.

Only, things don't quite go as planned.

\

Fast forward to a few years later.

_I've killed Prim._ The words blur together in his head. _I've killed Prim, and now Katniss_ (not Catnip anymore) _hates me_. His vision gets blurry, and he looks down upon his hands and thinks he sees crimson stains on them. Blood stains. He must be going mad.

_I'vekilledPrimI'vekilledPrimI'vekilledPrim._

He gives up on Katniss. She will never love him. Anyways, she has Lover Boy now.

Not that he cares. He doesn't care. Let her do whatever she wants with stupid Lover Boy. And he'll do what he pleases. He's got a fancy job in District Two and a brand new clean place to start in and good looks and money and honor, and already girls are pining away from him. He'll meet another girl and go on with his life and do as he pleases. He doesn't need Katniss. He doesn't need anyone. _He doesn't care_.

He meets a shallow blonde named Rosalie, who's pretty enough, and they start seeing each other. They're both using each other, and they know it, and they both don't care. They get what they want from each other, and then she moves away and they stop seeing each other.

He doesn't care.

He begins to drink. A lot. Like Haymitch, the old alcoholic he had once looked down on. Liquor bottles, full and empty, litter his fancy home. Once, he even tries using morphling and painkiller. It doesn't help much. Liquor's the best. Everything gets blurrier and blurrier, and he doesn't care. He parties and eats until he throws up, and then eats more. He gets fired from his job for partying too much and gets horrible headaches all the time now. He doesn't care. The headaches are better than the stupid crimson stains he gets on his hands if he doesn't drink.

No cares, no consequences.

\

Until that day, when Rosalie showed up on his doorstep and dumped a baby girl in his arms.

"I don't want it, but I don't want to kill it. You take it."

He wants to deny it, he wants to reject it; this _isn't _possible. The baby can't possibly, _possibly _be his. But he knows that the baby's his. It's the spitting image of him, even at only a few weeks old.

It's the spitting image of Katniss.

The girl that should've been her mother.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

_He doesn't care. He doesn't care. He doesn't care._

\

The baby cries a lot.

He almost stuffs a sock down the baby girl's throat, just to kill her and get the stupid baby out of his life, but something stops him.

The crimson stains reappear on his hands. He can imagine the crimson spreading, spreading…

He needs a drink. _He needs a drink. _A drink will help him cope. He reaches for a bottle of liquor, forces it open, and almost chugs it down, like he always does, but he stops at the last moment. And he dumps all the liquid in the toilet and flushes.

He's a father now.

This isn't the right way to get rid of the crimson bloodstains. It isn't.

He's going to be a _good_ father.

\

Years pass.

\

"You look just like her, you know," he tells her.

His twelve-year-old daughter smiles. She draws back the bow and releases the arrow, which lands clean on the center of the target with a _twang_.

_I always get what I aim for._

She smiles again, wider this time, completely innocent and unknowing. She doesn't know anything about the real world. He never taught her his pain. "My mother, you mean?" she asks.

"Yes," he answers after a pause, breathily. He's kidding himself, and he knows it, but, oh, _she looks so much like her_. Sometimes, he can close his eyes, and pretend that everything went the way it was supposed to. And when they come home from this park where his daughter practices archery, there will be a smiling Catnip _Hawthorne_ waiting for him, making squirrel soup.

His daughter's name is Prim.

And just like that, the fantasy pops. He remembers that Katniss hates him because he's killed Prim, and he is horrible, horrible person. He remembers that he is in District Two, far from home and family. He remembers the bloodstains on his hands.

The arrow in his heart _hurts_.

* * *

Probably the angstiest thing I've ever written.

R&R, please? Feedback would be great.


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